Knowledge Center

With the advent of Continuous Evaluation (CE) and the resulting overhaul of the Defense Department’s personnel vetting process for suitability, credentialing and security clearance processing program underway, the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) can expect many benefits with a few new challenges.

Increased regulatory scrutiny of a contractor’s supply chain is a critical element of the new comprehensive security assessment. This involves addressing the vulnerabilities introduced by every company and partner along the way whether manufacturing or providing services to your organization.

Sourcing physical security service providers has gotten more and less technical. While there is much time spent on cost comparison, technical acceptability, technology offerings and efficiency schemes, one of the most commonly overlooked aspects is a professional transition plan.

Outsourcing industrial physical security services has long been recognized as an effective cost management strategy for prime contractors. Labor is expensive; so service contracts tend to be large targets for procurement professionals to focus on for cost savings efforts. While a competitive marketplace is healthy for all parties, an over reliance on LPTA (Lowest Price Technically Acceptable) bidding can introduce risk in the supply chain and overall significantly impact the buyer’s contract performance.

Failing to adequately train armed security personnel may have significant consequences for an organization and/or their security supplier. During a ten-year study (East Carolina University) on civil litigation filed against police agencies that allege a failure to train, it was found that law enforcement agencies prevailed slightly less than 70% of the time and 55% of the claims were from non-lethal encounters. Private security does not have the same specific legal protections afforded to law enforcement agencies or their personnel. Most security companies fail to provide suitable firearms training and rely only on the operating state’s minimum standards as their legal defense. It’s imperative that private security lead the way in the development of professional armed training programs while adhering to and exceeding the prescribed minimums determined by each state.

Social and political demonstrations targeted at private company facilities can be disrupting and costly. While it’s important for security professionals to be prepared to address against these organized and ill intended disturbances, first amendment audits typically only involve one or several people overtly photographing and/or filming a government or private business facilities with the intention of instigating an unfavorable interaction with security personnel. The video results are then posted to the web and often are widely viewed leading to reputation and personal damages.